[This is the headline over a report published today on the website of Iran’s Press TV. It reads in part:]
An Iranian deputy foreign minister says a new allegation about Iran’s involvement in the 1988 attack on a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland is a Zionist propaganda.
The “fabricated report” broadcast by Qatar’s state-run Al Jazeera on Iran’s involvement in the attack just ahead of a joint Tehran-Doha Committee is highly questionable, Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Wednesday.
Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran has urged Doha not to allow the Zionists to push their agenda through Qatari media.
The Iranian official also stated that Tehran’s stance on fighting terrorism has always been clear. (...)
In a Monday interview with the Doha-based Al Jazeera TV, Abolqasem Mesbahi, who claims to be a fugitive former Iranian official now living in Germany, alleged that the bombing was ordered by Tehran and carried out by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).
Iran categorically dismissed the allegation and reiterated its strong opposition to any “act of terror.”
In the West we have "Godwin´s law" which states that "As an [online] discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1".
ReplyDeleteOf course Iran will have their own version matching their historical foes - so, "Zionism" instead of "Nazis". :-)
See, THIS is what happens when media types get all het up and want to solve the case by running their own wee whodunnit in front of a bunch of cameras.
ReplyDeleteThere's 100% solid bankable evidence that Megrahi didn't do it, but are they interested in highlighting that for what it is? No they are not. Not dramatic enough. So they run around spending a bloody fortune chasing spooks to construct a very questionable case accusing a different suspect instead.
Has none of these media types ever thought of making a factual programme just showing how the original investigation got it horribly wrong and convicted the wrong man, and then letting the proper authorities re-open the case into who actually did it? Too easy? Not dramatic enough?
It would have the advantage of being unassailable though, rather than running the risk of having a coach and horses driven through it.
Great post Rolfe
ReplyDeleteI suppose actually that previous post of mine was a bit unfair, because the previous two documentaries in the Al Jazeera series did look in detail at problems with the conviction. By the end of the second one I think they believed they had shot the conviction down in flames, and were ready to move on. The original working title of the third programme was "If not Megrahi, then who?"
ReplyDeleteI simply remain baffled that they made that programme, included an extremely clear statement from someone they billed as a "research scientist" declaring that a proper analysis of the forensic evidence shows "beyond any reasonable doubt" that the bomb was introduced at Heathrow, and that part has received precisely ZERO media attention.
I certainly agree with the Iranian spokesman that the documentary was "highly questionable" but seemed to be the work of charlatans and dimwits not Zionists (who, David Wolchover aside, may have done it better!)
ReplyDeleteI have little doubt that Lockerbie was retaliation for the Vincennes Incident.
I think it very likely the IED that destroyed flight PA103 was the work of CIA "asset" Marwan Khreesat who built it into an unidentified device, possibly a single speaker Toshiba bombeat radio-cassette recorder.
I think it is possible that Abu Talb may have played some role in the movement of this device from Neuss to Heathrow possibly via Cyprus, Rome and Malta. How it came to England is not in the public domain.
Same for Morag Kerr's brief but intelligent cameo the documentary represented the work of Megrahi's third defence team based on stuff that was in the public domain. I am sorry ms Kerr has yet to grasp the significance of her story about "Pinky".
While I thought the first two parts of this series were a wasted opportunity I share her frustration that this much-hyped documentary turned out to be so pathetic devoid of a shred of credible evidence (Morag Kerr aside.)
Should read "save for" not "same for". Very poor eyesight!
ReplyDelete